National Archives: Former PM Harold Wilson sold newspapers to fund his treatment

Former Prime Minister Harold Wilson late in life agreed to sell his entire personal and political archives to help fund his treatment, according to documents released by the National Archives.

Lord Wilson had originally planned to sell the collection to McMaster University in Canada for £212,500, or about £700,000 in today’s money.

He suffered from Alzheimer’s disease and required “continuous care, the costs of which are significant and will increase,” according to one document.

However, the proposal to sell the newspapers abroad caused concern among senior figures in Margaret Thatcher’s government.

In early January 1990, Cabinet Secretary Sir Robin Butler wrote to another civil servant to warn him that Lord Wilson’s former secretary, Lady Marcia Falkender, was “orchestrating a proposal” to create an archive for the former prime minister’s papers in Canada.

Part of the proceeds would be used to support Lord and Lady Wilson who “were now not very well off”, as his predecessor Lord Armstrong had reported to Sir Robin.

According to the files, there was “no enthusiasm” for the sale among Cabinet Office officials, with one pointing out that Lord Wilson’s papers were still subject to the so-called 30-year rule.

Government documents are transferred to the National Archives, but remain closed to the public for a period of time before they can be released – 30 years in the 1980s, although this has since been reduced to 20 years.

If Wilson’s documents had been sent to Canada, the 30-year rule could not have been applied, authorities said.

McMaster University wanted the archive to include documents from Lord Wilson’s time as prime minister of 10 Downing Street. The Labour leader served two terms as prime minister, from 1964 to 1970 and again from 1974 to 1976.

Sir Robin Hood thought the release of the papers would cause “public unease”. Andrew Turnbull, Mrs Thatcher’s principal private secretary, said he was unhappy about the “political/moral” aspect of such an idea.

“Although they are formally Lord Wilson’s private papers,” he wrote in March 1990, “they are part of our history and, it will be said, they are not really his to be ‘sold’.”

He said if Lord Wilson needed extra care in his old age, the trade union movement should support him.

That summer, however, the Cabinet Secretary sought ways to support Lord and Lady Wilson. He wrote that “the case of a former Prime Minister falling on hard times in this way seems very sad.”

He was told that the “special funds” available to the current prime minister could not help him. So he tried the parliamentary pension scheme, to see if its emergency fund could help. A government briefing note also suggested increasing the pensions of former prime ministers.

However, the proposed increase was only £5,000 a year.

Lord Armstrong had helped Lady Falkender. In November 1990, she told him that the Wilsons were “delighted” to hear of the pension increase, which “would clearly help them in their daily lives”.

But the sum was “in no way comparable” to that offered by the Canadian university.

Lord Armstrong had suggested it would be “unseemly” for the documents to leave the country.

Lady Falkender replied: “There has been too much suffering of one kind or another for ‘decency’ or ‘indecency’ to enter into the equation any more.”

She said money from newspapers would be “useful”, as would the sale of a “house, a work of art or a diamond brooch”.

The Cabinet Office was informed that there were no legal obstacles to the sale.

But in July 1991 an alternative solution was found. The Wilson Archive trustees found anonymous donors who funded the purchase of the documents by the Bodleian Library in Oxford.

The money would go into a fund set up for the Wilsons.

The archive would remain in the UK, and in a secure location. Until then, Lord Wilson had been storing his archives in the basement of the National Car Parks building in central London, thanks to the company’s chairman, one of his “staunch supporters”.

Lord Wilson died in 1995, aged 79.